Chapter 2

Damien

Mr. Brunner was Damien's favorite teacher. As always, he was wearing a tweed jacket and had a blanket covering his legs and his bushy beard along with his kind brown eyes gave him a natural trustworthy quality. He was also one of the few who consoled Damien when he heard that his brother had gone missing, but would he be that kind and considerate after seeing him fight a pair of monsters and freeze them in midair? Damien doubted it. "Um, Mr. Brunner what are you doing here?"

Mr. Brunner raised his eyebrow and tapped the corner of a large teacher's desk. "It's my classroom Damien."

"Oh…" Damien looked around the room to see maps of Greece, diagrams of ancient war machines, and posters of gods. "I don't suppose you see a pair of floating, very badly dressed, monkey guys do you?"

Mr. Brunner chuckled and pointed at the exact spot where the Kerkopes were still frozen. "You mean Akmon and Passalos? Yes I see them Damien, but let's not worry about them for now." Mr. Brunner wheeled himself towards Damien, stopping just a couple of feet away. "Damien, you're going to have to trust me."

"What do you mean Mr. Brunner? And how do you know their names?" Damien suddenly became very wary of his teacher and took up a fighting stance; despite him being in a wheelchair, Mr. Brunner suddenly seemed way more dangerous than the Kerkopes. "Who are you and what's going on?"

Mr. Brunner raised his hands defensively. "Please relax Damien, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just here to help." The sound of a bell ringing echoed from the hallway along with the din of hundreds of students on their way to class. "This really isn't the time or place to discuss it. Damien, we should go."

"I don't think so," Damien said as he took a couple of more steps back towards the door, only to bump into the still floating Kerkopes. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Mr. Brunner sighed and shook his head. "Fine." He began rummaging through a bag strapped to the side of his chair and brought a large wooden bow, along with a quiver of glowing bronze arrows. "Step aside please."

Damien did as he was told and moved several feet away from the door, not wishing to be at the receiving end of an arrow wielded by an insane history teacher.

Mr. Brunner knocked two of the glowing arrows onto his bow and took aim at the Kerkopes, who, despite being frozen, seemed to have changed their expressions to sheer terror.

Damien watched in horror as Mr. Brunner released the arrows and saw Akmon and Passalos dissolve into a cloud of dust and flannel that was quickly whisked away by a wind that seemed to come from nowhere. "What did you do?!"

Mr. Brunner stuffed his bow and quiver back into his side bag and brushed of some of the monster dust that drifted onto his tweed jacket. "I just sent them back to Tartarus, but they'll be back, sooner rather than later given the current state of things. Now then, I suggest you come with me Damien. More monsters will come and I only have so many arrows."

While the rest of the school prepared for classes, Damien and Mr. Brunner walked/wheeled out the back door into the staff parking lot. Damien made sure to keep a few feet behind Mr. Brunner in case he needed to make a quick getaway, but considering Mr. Brunner's skill with his bow, he doubted that it would make much of a difference. "Where are we going anyway?"

"To camp," said Mr. Brunner without looking back.

"And where is this camp?"

"New York."

"New York, right. And I suppose we're just gonna hop on a plane and fly there."

Mr. Brunner chuckled as he wheeled himself forward. "Hardly. A friend of mine is going to be doing us a favor."

After walking to the back of the parking lot, Damien could see a mailman with salt and pepper hair leaning against a delivery truck. He was flipping through an order log with a pen that seemed to have a pair of snakes circling around it. Damien looked skeptically at the mailman as he and Mr. Brunner stopped in front of him. "So we're going all the way to New York by snail mail… Great." Damien turned to see the mailman looking at him with startling blue eyes, and suddenly, he felt an overwhelming sense of power surge from the man.

The mailman clicked his pen and stuck it in his shirt pocket. "Cheeky one isn't he Chiron?"

"You can hardly blame him Lord Hermes, it's been a rough couple of days for him."

Damien looked from one man to the other and couldn't tell if they were crazy, serious, or seriously crazy. "Hermes? As in the Hermes? As in the god of messengers, roads, and thieves, Hermes?"

The mailman sneered and took a mock bow. "At your service."

Sure, don't introduce us. We're just the pen.

Hush George.

Hermes rolled his eyes as he took out his pen and clicked it a few times. "Why don't the both of you be quiet?"

Ouch! Was that really necessary?

Damien looked around the parking lot for the source of the voices he had just heard. "Who was that?"

Hermes sighed as he presented his pen, which began to glow with such intense light that Damien was forced to look away, and when he looked back, he saw a glowing bronze staff with wings and serpents circling around it. "Damien, meet George and Martha."

"Um… Hi?" Damien gave the snakes an awkward kind of wave as he stared at them spiraling around the pole.

Ooh, he's a good-looking one Hermes.

Got any mice?

George!

"You two be quiet or so help me." Hermes clicked his fingers and turned the snakes back into a pen and stuck it in his shirt pocket once more. "So, now that that's out of the way, what do you need Chiron?"

"If you would be so kind as to get us to camp."

Hermes raised his eyebrows and looked at Damien, then at Mr. Brunner. "That's it? You get me to pretty much disobey Zeus about his whole 'keep low for now' rule and all you want me to do is send you and the kid to camp? I thought you said it was important."

"Excuse me," Damien said as he stepped between his teacher and the world's most powerful mailman, "this 'kid' has a name, and he would really appreciate it if someone would explain to him what on Earth was going on right about now."

Mr. Brunner looked around Damien to Hermes. "It is important my Lord, and I'll be sure to fill you and the other Olympians in as soon as I know more, but for now, we really should be going."

"Fine, but Chiron, you owe me for this one, and I plan to collect."

"Of course." Mr. Brunner grabbed Damien's elbow with a vice like grip. "Best you hold on Damien, it can get a bit bumpy."

"Whoa! Hold on a min-" Damien never got the chance to finish his sentence as Hermes waved a hand and everything went dark.